Saturday, November 3, 2007

Hey Toothpick! Put On Some Weight And Build Some Muscle!

Scrawny, toothpick, skinny, boney... sound a little too familiar? Sure it does if you're the typical skinny hard gainer! Nothing is worse than when you hear those names on a consistent basis, from family and friends... heck even the co workers in my situation. Everyone has their two cents worth to say; like thinking you're sick when you're not! I can't begin to list them all here, but I've heard them all just as you have. And the fact is it's all the furthest from the truth right? How do I know? You're looking at a former, ex scrawny 5'8" 131LBS skinny guy who's conquered the gaining weight triumph!

So now I'm here to tell YOU a couple "need to knows" to putting some meat on your bones, which I like to call...

Bird Legs Be Gone!

In my opinion by far the most important area in gaining weight and building muscle is proper nutrition and the right amount of calories. You can't eat like a bird, work out and expect results. Doing that will have you running aro! und in circles; you'll end up discouraged looking for answers. By no means am I undermining a solid work out routine here, but if your lifting weights it will mean nothing if you didn't have the right amount of nutrients to repair help repair your muscles.

Keep it simple: Breaking it down in two parts:

1) NUTRITION - You can't eat everything in sight with all the junk foods and late night snacks and expect to build muscle weight, it just won't happen. In fact you'll end up taking the reverse effect with covering up your bones with fat instead. So what is proper nutrition? The basics here are your egg beaters, turkey sandwiches, all the greens/vegetables, water, fruits, whole wheat's, a multi vitamin ... etc. All of which should be included in your daily diet.

It's also eating 6 portioned meals a day, which helps your body break down what you eat more effectively and efficiently for optimal use of nutrients. This supplies you with the basic building blocks ! for gaining muscle - The protein, amino acids, vitamins/minera! ls and e ffective nutrition absorption. This is what factors in every night when you go to sleep, all of which is used to repair your muscles for your next work out session.

2) CALORIES - Why you're not gaining weight is primarily based upon these factors: your metabolic rate and caloric intake. It's simple; you can't burn more calories then your daily intake. Here's a quick formula for you to use to calculate how many calories you should be taking at the moment. Multiply your current weight by 19 calories per pound of body weight. Let's say you weigh in at 137LBS. 19 X 137 = 2603 calories. VOILA! When you begin to take these calories in your daily routine it sends the body into shock, sending signals telling it to GAIN WEIGHT! And I'm not saying just any calories will work; we're talking about quality here. Corresponding the 2 categories (nutrition - calories) together is a must and the formula looks like this: Good nutrition = Quality calories. They go hand in hand.

The! right amount of protein should be consumed on a daily basis to help generate healing and re-building your muscles. I usually try to get about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, which is about the norm for aiding muscle repair. Protein shakes are usually what people look to for good sources of protein. But that won't help you in your quest to gaining weight. Remember, we're talking about putting on some pounds here and protein shakes will only give your usual 200-300 calories and about 20 grams (give or take) of protein. That just won't cut it! Think for a second... do you have time to try eating/preparing 6-8 meals all day? That would be like getting a second job.

To help provide you with an all in one high calorie/protein meal you should supply yourself with a quality weight gainer to help replace 3 meals everyday for the first 2 to 3 months for your bulking phase. This allows for two things to take place: 1) you receive the high amount of calories to help ! you reach your daily goals and 2) a larger amount of protein p! er servi ng to also help achieve your daily protein intake.

All the Calories! Won't I Get Fat?

And the truth is... Gaining some unwanted fat is inevitable. You just can't have a high daily calorie intake and not expect some fat to surface. This is ok under normal circumstances of the bulking phase, but at the same time this doesn't mean to go out and start taking 4000+ calories a day thinking you will get bigger quicker. This method will end up stacking on more fat then wanted. Keep your calories at the minimum of what you need to gain weight. What I did was start off with the minimum amount of calories needed to start my spurt of muscle growth, which was approximately 2500. I kept it at that for 2-3 weeks until I noticed my gains slightly starting to stabilize. Once that happened, I would then slowly increase the amount by 300-500 calories a week or every other week. The sole purpose of my increases was to give my body a little shock so it doesn't adapt to the current ca! loric intake and stabilize at my current weigh in. In doing this it would also keep your body fat low and your gains at a steady incline. And that's exactly what you want!

Keep in mind your gains are going to differ in comparison to mine and others who have gained 20lbs in 4 weeks. My 24lbs took 2 months, so remember everyone's genes, nutrition and work out routine are different. How your body responds won't be the same as others. Be understanding of how your body is reacting whether it is slow or fast to your new weight gaining diet. Consistency and patience will be your two deciding factors on where you end up, either on the weight gainers side of the spectrum or you stay where you're at right now. Give your body time to realize and adapt to what is being done. I didn't see results until the third week. Stick with it! This is your sure shot way to weight gaining success.

ANYTHING ELSE I NEED TO KNOW?

This is only scratching the surface! And here's why...! I have read endless amount of information prior to obtaining ! my resul ts and gains. The obstacle for me was that I didn't know how to apply so much information found everywhere. All that knowledge didn't make complete sense because of a scattered routine, putting different information together, which leads you no where!

There are a few aspects of diet and bodybuilding which you should grasp a better understanding of, from meal planning, workout programs to supplementation. Once you understand it, your muscle building goals will be achieved and everything will become so clear that packing on pounds will be easy as counting to 3. So get up! Follow me and get started!